


Stillness

by Fig Owl (DancingTofu)



Category: The Murderbot Diaries - Martha Wells
Genre: Canon Asexual Character, Gen, No Spoilers, POV First Person, Pre-All Systems Red, The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon, Warning: contains a snake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 06:54:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,788
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28595790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DancingTofu/pseuds/Fig%20Owl
Summary: Murderbot is on a boring contract, when something unexpected makes contact with it.
Comments: 19
Kudos: 77





	Stillness

“SecUnit, stand there, and don’t move.” The client pointed to a spot against the wall, directly behind his opponent, who was, incidentally, another client. “Let’s see you cheat me with that watching over your shoulder!”

I obediently moved into position. I had been reluctantly patrolling the recreation area, but this was an easy enough command to follow, especially if Hallin didn’t add to it. He was inebriated enough that I doubted he would remember to. 

“You think that thing actually knows the rules?” Ajne grumbled.

“Doesn’t matter, it should keep you honest, at least. Now, what’s your bid?”

The two continued their card game, and predictably forgot about me. I kept my face a careful blank, SecUnit neutral. I fixed my eyes on the far wall, and started listening to a new collection of music from an artist local to this system. It had an interesting rhythm, and a wandering melody, though the lyrics failed to make much sense to me. I didn’t want to start a serial, in case any of them decided to give me new orders. Out of my peripheral vision, I watched Ajne cheat his way through the rest of the evening, losing just often enough to keep Hallin on the hook. When the habitat lights dimmed for the final time, they gathered up their game and returned to their bunks for the night, without giving me another glance.

I thought about smiling, though of course I didn’t. (I had been practicing when I was absolutely certain I was alone. It felt weird, and looked even worse, when I watched myself with a drone cam. Maybe that was partly because I hated looking at myself on drone cam. But the humans on the serials smiled a lot, and sometimes even seemed to do so out of enjoyment.) Anyway, once the SecSystem had registered all bunkroom doors sealed and lights-out, I relaxed minutely, and started up episode 84 of “The Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.” It was getting really good, and I hadn’t wanted it to be interrupted by stupid humans making me do things. But now I had the perfect excuse to do nothing for the rest of the cycle. Not even SecSystem would countermand a direct order from a client, unless an emergency came up. Which was unlikely, unless Hallin sobered up enough to realize how much currency he had been cheated out of. But with the bunkrooms on the opposite end of the habitat, that sounded like some other SecUnit’s problem.

Episode 87 was going heavy on the romance, and I was getting worried that there would be a sex scene coming up soon, when I noticed a small movement out of the corner of my eye. I had let my small intel drones go dormant, since all the humans and augmented humans were relatively stationary. I’m not sure that the drones would have picked up on it, though. Their dark vision relies mostly on infrared, but the more sophisticated filters in my eyes told me that whatever this movement was, it wasn’t warm. I paused the episode, and without moving my head, looked more directly at where the movement had been. There was nothing there now.

The HubSystem kept a Terran-equivalent light-dark schedule, after previous attempts to acclimate humans to this planet’s 154 hour day proved unsuccessful. (Psychotically, violently unsuccessful. Fortunately, I wasn’t here for that. In fact, no SecUnit security had been. Perhaps that’s why they brought us in this time.) So the recreation area was dark now, even though I knew that outside, the system’s primary star was blazing overhead. I turned my head now, scanning the area along the wall where I was certain the movement had been. I cycled through my own dark vision filters, curious what it could be. 

It had been small, low to the ground, and quick. There were any number of drones and simple research bots used by the humans in the facility, but I wasn’t aware of any that operated that close to the ground. Maybe one was malfunctioning? But my infrared scan should pick up even the low level of heat emitted by the power sources from any of those, and I was getting nothing. I started scanning the whole room now, and still didn’t find anything. I reviewed the glimpse I had gotten earlier. It moved smoothly, almost like something pulled along by a string. I played back the ambient audio from that timestamp, and heard nothing out of the ordinary. Weird.

I was about to go back to my episode, even it if was heading toward a sex scene, when I felt the cuff of my uniform’s loose pants brush against my ankle. I looked down, and was confused by what I saw. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t a research drone. Some kind of local fauna, maybe? I wasn’t familiar with any this shape, though, long and slender and entirely limbless. But my dataset contained only those fauna deemed threatening to my clients, so at least whatever this was, it was likely harmless. I did wonder how it had gotten in, though.

I was querying HubSystem’s knowledge base, and was surprised when it sat up. Well, sort of sat up. I don’t know how to describe it. The front (I guess it was the front anyway, there were things that looked like eyes, though it had spots and patterning all down it) just raised up. And up. Much farther up than something without any apparent source of leverage should be able to. Almost half its body length now wavered in the air, perpendicular to the floor, nearly touching my leg. Just barely discernible in the darkness, some kind of flickering movement was happening around its head, presuming that was a head. Antennae, maybe?

HubSystem returned an answer just then. Broadly, it was a snake. Specifically, it was  _ Leptophis ethorigus _ . Interestingly, it was venomous, but the effect on humans and augmented humans was limited to a short episode of euphoric hallucinations. In some cases, a mild euphoria was reported to last up to 50 hours. This didn’t seem like a very good hunting strategy to me, but then, the venom probably did something different to its intended prey. It was an ectotherm, or colloquially “cold-blooded,” which is why it hadn’t shown up on infrared scanning. It was almost exactly the same temperature as the recreation area itself, which the knowledge base was telling me was much lower than ideal for its continued survival. 

At that point, it leaned against my leg, and scooted its head around the back of my calf, aiming up toward my knee. I really hate being touched, but I didn’t move. (With my hacked governor module, Hallin’s inebriated command wasn’t actually holding me in place. And if I bothered to petition it, SecSystem would allow for the conditional context of that command, and return me to my regular duties.) There was no intentionality behind this touch, and somehow that made a difference. No attempt to control, or harm, or even influence. It was just instinct, survival. I realized it must be attracted to my body heat, and as motionless as I had been, it might not even realize I was alive. (I hadn’t bothered breathing since I had stopped patrolling. When I wasn’t exerting myself, I didn’t need to, and it helped to limit my exposure to the disgusting dirty-sock smell of humans. I have accepted that I will never truly escape this smell, but I still tried to avoid it as much as I could.)

The snake wrapped its whole body around my leg, squeezing tightly, and somehow climbing up me. It squeezed and relaxed and reached up and squeezed again. I delved deeper into the knowledge base’s entry on snakes as I watched it, wondering how exactly it could do what it was doing. Images of internal scans answered that pretty quickly. Okay, wow. That was a lot of bones. Just excessive. And the muscles to go with them. Right, well, that explained the sitting up thing, I guess. 

It had reached my thigh now, and was still reaching upward, bobbing its head around. It looked like it was searching. This close, I could see its tongue now (not antennae), flicking in and out and waving all around. That was apparently how it smelled, bringing trace chemicals inside to its olfactory organ. That seemed much more unpleasant than my system, and I felt a little sorry for it. The several holes above its mouth that looked like they should be nostrils, were actually heat sensing organs. It bumped its head against my hand, hanging down at my side, and then started climbing my arm. It was cold, and smooth. It felt weird. I increased my body temperature for it.

Before long, it had made its way to my shoulder, and then to the back of my neck. It pushed under my collar, and slid in right next to my skin. Okay.

No. 

Not okay. 

Not okay at all. 

But I still didn’t move. 

I had allowed it to get this far, and it somehow seemed wrong to betray its trust at this point, especially when it was only trying to survive. Also, while I didn’t think that its venom would have any effect on me, if I was wrong about that, “euphoric hallucinations” sounded like a great way to end up rendered down for spare parts after my hacked governor module was discovered. It would probably be quite the scene, really. 

It circled my neck entirely a couple of times, getting its whole body up there and in under my shirt. It squeezed tight a few times, in a way that would likely have a human slightly concerned about passing out if it kept up, but the blood and fluids flowed through my body differently than in a human. Then it shifted until it was only draped around my neck, head and tail (I guess? The whole thing looked like a tail.) dangling down against my chest, and it relaxed. This… was maybe not so bad. I really hoped it wouldn’t defecate on me though.

It still felt so cold against my skin. This region of the planet was hot, especially with such long day cycles. I increased my body temperature again, though in short order I would need to start breathing again to maintain that. I gave it a few more minutes to settle in, and then took a slow, shallow breath. It didn’t seem disturbed by that, so a minute later, I repeated it. Maybe it was sleeping? How would I tell? After several more careful breaths, I began just breathing normally. If it was going to be upset by that, maybe we could get the euphoric hallucinations over with before any of the humans woke up. Eventually, I decided that it must be sleeping, and went back to episode 87.

But I was right, and the sex scene started 16 minutes later. And I was still curious about how my new friend had ended up in here. As far as I knew, these clients weren’t collecting biological samples, let alone living samples. While I skimmed over the sex scene, I set up some keyword searches on the security data. Maybe the clients did have some special interest in it. I hadn’t really been paying much attention to what they were actually doing here. I let my searches run in background while I returned my attention to the more heavily clothed storylines in Sanctuary Moon.

Not long before HubSystem was due to start bringing the lights up for the start of a new cycle, I finished episode 89, and reviewed my search results. It took some sorting out, but apparently some of my clients had been providing the others with recreational access to captured  _ L. ethorigus _ specimens. For a price, of course. Then humans and augmented humans would allow themselves to be bitten, and enjoy the results. (Well, I say allow, but it apparently took some effort to get the snake agitated enough to bite them.) The acute effects were short-lived enough that none of the management had caught on yet, which was saying something, since they closely monitored the worker efficiency stats collected by HubSystem.

Well. Maybe this explained why there had been fewer interpersonal altercations than would be expected from this large a group of clients, if the less intense euphoric effects were somewhat prolonged. As odd as it was, the situation didn’t seem to pose any kind of security threat. And MedSystem could worry about any possible deleterious long term side effects.

But, what was I supposed to do about the one currently using me as a bunk? It was dangerously underweight, judging by the data I had pulled from the knowledge base. Were the humans even feeding it? It had escaped whatever substandard containment it must have been in, or slipped away from some hallucinating human. It had sought me out as a life-sustaining heat source. It just wanted to survive, in a strange environment that it had been brought into by another’s decision. I kind of related to that. Kind of a lot.

I know, I know. I wasn’t being rational about this. It didn’t have the sentience to understand that it had climbed me, and not a sun-warmed rock. But whether or not it could think, it had the will to keep on living, and now it was reliant on me to help it do that. It almost felt like a client. One that had chosen me, specifically. One that I didn’t hate. Before any of the now-stirring humans or augmented humans made their way down to where I was, I reached up and tugged the hood of my uniform jacket higher around my neck, and fastened the front all the way up, hoping to hide any evidence of my strange passenger.

It wasn’t until two hours after the clients’ work shift had started that a site supervisor used HubSystem to track me down. I had been listening to music again, too nervous to watch any serials. A field team was being held up by my absence, and she demanded to know why I was not reporting as scheduled.

_ I was instructed by Technician Hallin not to move, _ I replied over the feed, and included the timestamped video clip of receiving the order. The supervisor muttered some imprecations that did not bode well for Hallin’s enjoyment of his next allotted recreation period. She ordered me to join the field team immediately, at the hopper landing pads. I gathered my dormant drones and set off in that direction. I informed her that I did not have my armor or projectile weapon, but she only repeated “immediately,” and cut the feed connection. When I had started moving, my  _ L. ethorigus _ client woke, and gripped the back of my neck tighter with its midsection, but it did not emerge from under my uniform jacket, which was good.

I wasn’t really worried, as we had not yet encountered any hostile fauna that had required the large projectile weapon, and there were always at least two SecUnits accompanying the field teams. In fact, I was relieved, since this meant that I wouldn’t have to figure out what to do with the snake when I put on my suit-skin and armor. It couldn’t exactly stay draped around my neck underneath the armor. All I had come up with was forcing it into the small compartment underneath my ribs, and assuming that action didn’t aggravate it enough to bite me (I still wasn’t sure that the venom wouldn’t affect me), I really wasn’t sure how I would explain stripping half out of my armor and suit-skin in the field to then release it. This was a much simpler, and supervisor-ordered, solution. I made sure to include those direct orders in my status report to SecSystem and HubSystem, since it was a breach of contract to have a less-than-fully-equipped SecUnit out on a field assignment. But as long as I returned intact, or at least repairable, I doubted the company would ever notice.

I had a moment to wonder why exactly I was taking such a risk at all. I didn’t know for certain that there weren’t dangerous predators on this planet, and the snake was  ~~ just a half dead animal ~~ a client. The automatic correction supplied by some deep part of my mind answered that question as soon as I asked it. I put my risk assessment module’s complaining on a backburner, and loaded myself and my unusual client into the small hopper’s cargo compartment. At least one of us would be free today, and maybe that was enough for now.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work posted here, and I'd love to hear any feedback. I hope you enjoyed it! I've been listening to all of the Murderbot audio books on repeat since the start of the pandemic - they are my Sanctuary Moon.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Неподвижность](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29081031) by [bitari](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bitari/pseuds/bitari), [WTF Cyberpunk 2021 (fandom_Cyberpunk_2019)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_Cyberpunk_2019/pseuds/WTF%20Cyberpunk%202021)




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